


No Starry World

by Greyhound



Series: Ryuuhou Week 2015 [1]
Category: DRAMAtical Murder - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Ryuuhou Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 04:17:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4946371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greyhound/pseuds/Greyhound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The people who Ryuuhou takes interest in are incredibly varied. </p>
<p>Fic(s) for days 3, 4 and 5 of Ryuuhou Week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sweet And Synthetic

**Author's Note:**

> Okay first of all these fics can be read together as one bigger fic or as separate shorter ficlets, it doesn't really matter
> 
> This one is actually just a clean up of one of my earliest character studies on Ryuuhou, done almost a year ago omg. For day 3, I decided to go with the prompt of "My Love"
> 
> Names taken from the song No Starry World by Miike Snow bc I am awful with names

The concept of hatred is more than a little lost on you. Not in that you can't comprehend it - it sticks out harshly in eyes and voices and the general demeanor of most at times - but rather that you're not entirely sure how you yourself could ever come to hate something.

Hell, even dislike is a notion you don't feel all too often. You do however dislike it when your designs come out wrong, when the ink swirls wrong on the paper and even more so on skin. Luckily that seems to be a less and less common occurrence, as of late. That's another thing you love - the way your skills are improving. How little by little you are able to trap more and more power underneath someone's skin. Adoration skitters across the front of your mind as your eyes drink in patterns on skin, smatters of bright patterns and intricate lines engineered to stand out neatly. That same adoration trickles in the soft sweetness of your tone, as you lilt words of fondness for the canvas itself.

Thinking a little deeper, it's clear that others appear to see love rather separately from how you do. Not that it bothers you - diversity in the way that people think and feel is one of the many things you look upon fondly. It's that diversity that plays a part as to how your ink affects them, after all.

Your brush dances across the page, yet with a click of the tongue you decide it is far from good enough. Not right, not right, and with a smooth flick of the wrist you tear the page from in front of you and drop it onto a pile directly to your left, all sporting very similar designs. You have to keep improving. You're being watched; there's a man in particular who's taken a strong interest in you, and you yourself have taken a strong interest in said man's son.

That boy who you met briefly, who you could tell through no more than a few exchanged lines would make for the perfect blank page upon which to carve what would be your magnum opus. Your mind wanders to that dark haired boy - Koujaku, if you were to recall correctly - and a thrill makes it's way down your spine at the thought of piercing his skin with your needle.

Retracing your thoughts like one would with a delicate thread, you consider the way in which Koujaku's father must love him. A subset of familial love, perhaps, though he'd given no reasoning as to why he'd like such a thing done to his son. Despite your warm demeanor, the man hadn't lost his cold and businesslike edge - though you suppose this was to be expected whilst dealing with yakuza.

Your brush meets the page once more.

You have to keep practicing.


	2. Don't Press Me For Survival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryuuhou Week Day 4; Prompt taken was "My Masterpiece".
> 
> In which Ryuuhou concerns himself with tattooing Koujaku.

The request, you suppose, is simple enough. Toue had requested you used the ability he had gifted you in what he had described as an experiment - just how much control could you imprison under the skin using such a tattoo? You'd been given a wide enough timeframe, but said time was quickly slipping away from you like sand slips through one's fingers.

Confidence ebbed into your work on and off like the lapping of waves; sometimes it felt as though the blossoms on the paper beneath your fingers would never reach your standards, and sometimes you were self assured that all would go as planned, as you brush over the page with ink as dark as crow's feathers, patterns interweaving just so. Fate had woven everything else neatly for you; the man offering his son and requesting you tattoo him, the intense boy you'd met only briefly but who you knew from the get go would be the perfect recipient. 

All so perfect, and neat, and clean, and intricate.

Much like the details of your tattoos, you suppose.

One thing about tattoos, part of their charm to you, is their permanence. All the ink deposited under the skin, it's to stay there forever. And that was why the slightest tremor of anxiety prickles through you, though withheld beneath your smile, as gloved hands skirt over that unblemished back - if you were to mess this up, if you were to fail Toue...It's a thought you can only really bare to shove aside, your nomi now balanced in your fingers. The bamboo is light, and it's with ease that you dip the sharpened point into your dish of ink. 

You ease yourself away from your concern by instead focusing on the sound of the needle piercing skin, and the way Koujaku tenses and gnashes his teeth in pain. It's something to ground yourself you find, as you allow the pattern to flow just as it did on the paper. 

The excess carmine ink mingles with blood, staining skin and then cloth as you wipe off all the excess. Any concern you may have felt initially begins to melt away as you seed intense power underneath Koujaku's skin - there's no way of knowing if your work even would come to fruition, not yet, but you have faith in the talent you'd gained through years upon years of gruelling practice. 

You part ways with Koujaku, bidding him farewell and a warning to not let his rage better him. All you can really do is wait now, wait and see if your little experiment is a success. 

It's not until years later, when you get to witness the tattoo taking a hold on Koujaku first hand, that you really get a feel for just how much of a success your masterpiece is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really don't like this one tbh


	3. Sell Me No Starry World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryuuhou is tasked with tattooing a man terribly fond of his work.
> 
> Written for Ryuuhou Week, Day 5, prompt taken was 'His Punishment'.

It's sort of ironic, really.

Here's a man who looked up to you in every respect possible. A man who was reduced to nothing more than an excitable puppy when given the chance to meet you, who had excitedly sported his respect for yourself and your works. A man who shared your craft, and who you were positive was borderline on the verge of fainting when you looked over his own works with a fond smile and praised his linework, for it was clean and crisp, just as a good tattoo design needs. He only grew more excitable as you tore out a page from your sketchbook, a fairly unnotable sketch of a design, and handed it to him. 

You bet Mizuki never considered that you would ever actually tattoo him, but here you were. Apprehension flickers in that olive gaze as he expresses that he isn't exactly fond of the idea of having the tattoo on his neck covered, and you reaffirm yet again for what must be the fourth time now that Dry Juice is no longer, and that he is now part of Morphine, and for that you have been told to cover the tag art spanning his neck. 

Hands folding into fists and neck bobbing with a thick swallow, you watch some form of determination steel in Mizuki's gaze. He wants this, he wants to be a part of Morphine, for the sake of those he cares for most, he wants to be the first of his team to join so they don't have to be afraid of stepping into the unknown. You shoot him a warm smile at this, preparing your dish of ink as he babbles away. Is this what he does when he's nervous? 

He goes quiet as you pull a thin silver needle from the bag on your hip, and then he says something that really makes you think.  
"I hope Aoba's not too worried, he and Koujaku keep worrying about me lately," He utters, but then goes silent as soon as his gaze rests on your face, and then your needle. You're not sure whether he goes silent at the look on your face or the needle, but you still allow yourself a moment to ponder. That had to be the same man, that had to be _your_ Koujaku, you being aware he came back to Midorijima after your work had proven successful. 

You turn you lips up in a smile.  
"Head back," You lilt, and it's clear that by now Mizuki is almost clear of his trepidation as he tilts his chin up, baring his throat. All too quickly you press the point of the needle into Mizuki's jugular. You don't see his eyes glaze, but you notice the way his body goes slack.

It's sort of ironic, your greatest fan befriending your greatest masterpiece.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *jazz hands* there we go 
> 
> this is my fave segment of this thing tbh wow


End file.
